Happy Birthday, Scott!

 Happy Birthday to my brother, Scott!  I always say if I could go back in time and play with one little kid it would be Scott.  All our home videos of him are the best.

Here are my 3 favorite things about Scott:

1. He's always been so nice and protective of his little sis.  Especially while I'm in the Holy Land. 

2. He's hilarious.  No matter what it is he's talking about, he can get a room laughing.  But if anyone else were to tell the same jokes, it wouldn't even be half as funny.  And I love when he tries to be a good swimmer in our parents backyard...

3. He's the best dad in the world to his 2 babies and they love him to DEATH!

 I love you, Scott!  Thanks for being such a great brother!

Head Table.

Tonight we celebrated Passover a little early and enjoyed a delicious Jewish Seder dinner.  Say hello to the speakers who got to sit at the head table with Ophir.  Hollah.

It was cool to see our professor teaching us first hand about his beliefs and showing us the Jewish customs.

The best part was sitting by Ophir's daughter Yemima.  How cute is she??  I loved watching her drink the grape juice before it was time, and sneaking bits of chocolate when she knew she wasn't supposed to mix milk and meat for another 3 hours.  Kids will be kids -- what a sweetheart. 

She made me miss all my babies at home!

A few of us had some singing parts -- Jaquel even sang a solo while Paul Wall did a rap.  It was seriously good.  I got it on film, I'll post it sometime.  She sang LOVELY.

King Hezzekiah's the MAN.

On Thursday, POST Old T midterm exams, a few of us went to the City of David to stroll around and, oh, I don't know, walk through Hezzekiah's water tunnel maybe?

I dare say there is a small number of people who can say they've planked at the City of David.  Possibly only 4 people, in fact.

And I think there's only one who can say they've planked in the City of David WEARING a head lamp: 5 points for Andrea.

I promise I was super psyched to see the tunnels...  Head lamp and all.

Alright, so here's the crew.  This picture PROBABLY wasn't worth hoisting everyone up into that little hole, but the laughs that came while "gently" guiding everyone down definitely WAS worth it.  And 3 cheers for Jordan who set the self timer AND got into the picture in 10 seconds time... Skills.

On our way down to the tunnel Jaquel couldn't figure out how to turn on her head lamp, so she asked if I could try it out.  Like a complete ROOOOOOOKIE I attempted it over this metal grate... Turned the front of her lamp and 3 pieces of metal fly off the light and down down down into the grate...  I can't explain how funny this was, but I'm still laughing thinking about Jaquel's response.  We just looked at each other with wide eyes and all she said was "I borrowed that."  Hahahaha!  The worst things always happen to the stuff that isn't even yours...

Luckily Tom is the man and reached into that nasty thing and pulled all the pieces out.

Thigh deep in the water systems.  Lookin fly as usual.

I was looking forward to the "pool" at the end...  A moss filled sewer wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but hey, the tunnels were enough for me.  I think I say this in every post, but things just keep getting better, and this probably REALLY WAS one of the coolest things I've done in Jerusalem so far.  King Hezzekiah knew what he was doin down there.

Great day all around. Love.

Joshua Fought the Battle at Jericho.

Monday was my favorite field trip so far.  We went to Jericho, the ROAD to Jericho where the parable of the Good Samaratin takes place, and the Mount of Temptation where Christ communed with God.  So amazing and crazy to consider the events that happened in the places we are STANDING.  I am so blessed.

Schade bus photo-op.  We need to stop choosing spots that are half way in the shade..

"Liddy" and I checking out the wall at Jericho.  Oldest man made wall still around! (Still not used to calling her Liddy.  She'll always be Liz to me, but nobody knows who the heck I'm talking about when I refer to Liz!)

ALSO:  my child got her Mission call this week!!!  I don't know if I'm allowed to say where she's going yet, but if you know Liz -- email her and ASK! So happy for her.

 I will leave you with the beautiful series of me eating a dried Fig -- which I've become quite fond of here in Jerusalem.

Until next time -- Peace and Love.

Turk a Lurk

HELLO!! All the kids just got back from an EXCELLENT week in Turkey!  If you're too lazy to sift through these loads of pictures and travelog, here's a quite entertaining video of our travels!

If this doesn't work, you can see it here -- http://vimeo.com/50093919

Turkey Lurkey from Andrea Brinton on Vimeo.

Our trip was kicked off Sunday morning with a FULL day of travel for a 2 hour flight from Ben Gurion to Istanbul.  Long lines and enjoyable company to be sure.

I always love when you get to come off the plane in STYLE on the runway.

This was one of the funniest moments of my whole study abroad so far.  I realized that Quin, who I've been hanging around EVERYDAY is actually THEEE QUIN STEVENSON!  Pretty much only Reid will appreciate this, but I think I was crying laughing for a good 10 minutes. And I think Quin was crying laughing at ME crying laughing about it...

Our first night we got in pretty late, so we just went to dinner at a nice little restaurant in Istanbul and KONKED OUT in our hotels.  Aside from our first hotel.... all of the places we stayed were CRAZY cool.  The next day we spent walking around and learning about Istanbul with our trusty tour guide, Ur, who we grew to LOVE by the end.

Istanbul is such a good city.

We went inside the blue Mosque, which was probably one of the most intricate, BEAUTIFUL buildings I've ever seen.  And I think we all secretly loved wearing our scarves inside.

Staish and I had a lengthy conversation on the plane about how much we both love Disneyland, and then we went to this BASICALLY Disneyland Castle... We had to get a quick pic.

We then took the greatest boat ride down the Aegean Sea? Or maybe the Black Sea.  Heck, there was a lot of stuff to remember.  All I know is that it was a fun boat ride, and that I had Asia on one side of me and Europe on the other side, so I was satisfied!

Eating lunch Sea side with a load of your favorite people is a pretty cool thing.

THE Quin Stevenson, everybody. Sharing my headphones.  Who would've thunk.

Aren't my friends BEAUTIES?!

Okay, so our bus driver pulls up on this dock, and Ur lets us know that we can either chill in the bus for about 30 minutes, or get out and walk around.  I'm thinkin it's just a potty break, so I decide to get out for some fresh air when I realize that OUR BUS IS ON THE BOAT!  He just pulled up right onto the boat!

So, I'm pretty aware that I'm not the most gorgeous sleeper.  But even if I wasn't aware, I would be after this trip.  You know it's a bad thing when your PROFESSORS are telling you that you have the "sleeping face of the trip"... yikes. (Disclaimer: this is a reenactment).

This, however, is not a reenactment.  I literally didn't feel a thing when Tommy was cozying on up to me.  I really need to get some better sleeping habits!!!

Okay, TROY!!!!!!!!!!!  This place rocked.  One of my favorite parts of Turkey (Probably because Professor Bay got me obsessed with the Ilead Freshman year, and I could see all the places of Hektor and Achilles). This is brother Schade's class in front of the Trojan Horse.

Brother Stratford...

Is funny.  He told us to follow the leader and stick our finger in our nose -- on three, he quickly put his arm down... Rookies.

THIS WAS THE BEST HOTEL.  We basically had it to ourselves, and we each had our own balcony with a beautiful view of the Aegean.  We all went swimming before dinner time.  We're making the Turkey sign with our hands, in case you DEFINITELY can't tell.

Hanging out on the dock -- Seriously, I can't even say how much I love these people enough.

Turkey festivities.

Beachside DP.  Yeah the HOTEL hooked us up with some speakers and DEF allowed this.  We just had to shut it down at 10:30.  Worth it.  One of the best things about our trip.

Going through and swapping pictures with everyone after Turkey was mind blowing.  I am being a complete loser in so many picturs.

I wrote my sight report about Assos, so I was looking forward to this sight quite a bit.

One more thing -- A mullet AND a ponytail?  Yeah.

BEAUTIFUL views.  One of the best devotionals we've had here yet.

Sometimes we take engagements at the Temple of Athena -- and sometimes people actually get engaged in our group!  Shout out to kassie and Dallin who got engaged in Turkey!

Ancient Ruin Planking.

I guess Pergamum was pretty cool too... Just kidding it was AWESOME!  Seriously the ruins in Turkey were so crazy.  The views where these people built their sites on were incredible.

3 people, 1 pillar -- CHECK.

Hanging out at the Ephesus Princess (that had the best food in Turkey, and the smallest chance of developing a case of the Turkey Trots).

So, I actually took ONE good picture with Cal this entire trip.  But this one was more characteristic of the other 10 we took that DIDN'T turn out.  I don't know what our ish was, but seriously they were all ridiculous!  Haha on three we both couldn't handle the sun anymore.

Ephesus!  One huge ancient ruin of a city.  This is the library there.

I saw a few tourists posting solo dolo like this, and I wanted to give it a try.  My best angle fer sher.

ROOMMATE PIC!  Sad I hardly saw these ladies the whole time cause they're not on my bus!  But happy to spend a minute or two with them on the Ferry.

Pretty Windy...

So Rachel had this excellent idea to take picture with Ur without him know, like this one below.  I happily obliged, cause she would be the one looking silly, not me.  Psych!  I realized later that I'M the one who lookes like the loser because I'm always the one TAKING PICTURES OF HIM MID LECTURE!!! Oh well.  The series of pics was worth it.

Tommy and Quin.  That's all...

Probably a good thing we don't use scarfs on the daily.  We don't know how to tie them whatsoever.

Back to Istanbul to shop on our last night!

And to eat some Fish... this pic was not posed, that thing had a head and I HATED it.

If you've made it this far, I'm impressed with you.  Such a long post.  Great time.